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Sunday, June 2, 2019

Type 2 Nutrition #488: NPR on Coconut Oil

A while back I caught the last
few sentences of this “Eating and Health” piece on NPR’s Morning
Edition. In it, somebody (it was Alice Lichtenstein – more on her in a minute)
says, “Why things like coconut oil somehow slipped under the radar is a little
bit unclear. But it’s not consistent with any of the recommendations that have
occurred [passive voice] over the past 30, 40, 50 years.” I made a note to
listen to the full segment later.

My first naïve thought was that
the “30, 40, 50 years” remark was a hedge. My hope was that the speaker was
saying that the quality of evidence against
dietary fat was poor, as more and better research has recently revealed. That
the speaker was trying to scapegoat the long-held Federal Government’s
recommendation to avoid dietary fat,
particularly saturated fat (including coconut oil), as unhealthy. Alas, my
hopes were dashed.

It turns out that the clip I
heard was not scripted by an NPR segment producer; it was actually made by
Alice Lichtenstein, D.Sc., architect to the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for
Americans. And she was now “doubling down” and using confirmation bias to
assert the strength and “truth” of the Dietary Guideline’s perennial dictum.

Since 1980 the Guidelines have
recommended that we strive to avoid eating animal
fats, i.e.,saturated fat, in favor of “vegetable” (seed and grain) oils, all
man-made, unnatural and highly processed polyunsaturated fats. The reason
coconut oil “somehow slipped under the radar” is that it, like palm kernel oil,
are unusual in that they are plant-basedsaturated fats. The Guidelines, if
you hadn’t noticed, are biased towards “plant-based.” And that is why
Lichtenstein would say, disingenuously, that “it is a little bit unclear.”

NPR’s April Fulton begins the
piece, “Is coconut oil a healthy food? It certainly is promoted as one. Survey
a broad group of Americans and 72 percent say, yes, coconut oil is healthy.”
Fulton adds, “Fat is not the enemy.
Fat helps us feel fuller longer and stay satiated. Eating some fat can actually
help us snack less and potentially lose weight.” And I would add,
the Dietary Guidelines dropped the
recommended limit on dietary fat in 2015.

However, six months earlier, in this USA Today story, Dr. Karin Michaels, PhD, a professor at
Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said Coconut oil was “pure
poison.” “I can only warn you urgently,” she said, “this is one of the worst
foods you can eat.” This kind of advice from a Harvard epidemiologist only does
them harm. The First Law of
Holes is, “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” But continue to dig
they do.

Lichtenstein, more fully
identified in the USA Today “pure
poison” story as “Tufts professor of nutrition science and policy” and “vice chair of the 2015 federal
government’s dietary guidelines advisory committee,” recently told The New York Times ‘there’s virtually no
data to support the [coconut oil] hype.’” None? Really?

Andreas
Eenfeldt, MD, at theDietDoctor.com, responded, “Study after studyhas shown that
saturated fat isn’t bad for you. Unfortunately, outdated advice based on old
and disproven theories is still being believed, even by some professors at
Harvard. I recommend checking out the updated scienceon the topic…or just watch this short video, where some very clever medical doctors answer the question,
is saturated fat bad?”

NPR’s Fulton concludes, So, it’s
okay to use coconut oil; just don’t use it all the time. What you want to do is
shift the ratio more towards unsaturated fat and away from saturated fat. And
that means more olive, flax and canola oil and less coconut oil and bacon. It’s
all about the balance.” She’s wrong! It’s the exact opposite!!!

The NPR piece then gets even
worse. It advocates “unsaturated fats like corn oil, sunflower oil or olive
oil” and “olive, flax and canola oil.” Curiously, there was no mention of soybean
oil, which accounts for a whopping 87% of U. S. edible oil production.
[2008]. Why do you suppose NPR didn’t even mention soybean oil? Aren’t Archer
Daniels Midland and Cargill both NPR underwriters? It appears that there’s more
work here for a good, objective
investigative reporter.

About Me

I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic in 1986. I started a Very Low Carb diet (Atkins Induction) in 2002 to lose weight. I didn’t realize at the time that it would put my diabetes in clinical remission, or that I would be able to give up almost all of my oral diabetes meds. I also didn’t understand that, as I lost weight and continued to eat Very Low Carb, my blood lipids would dramatically improve (doubling my HDL and cutting my triglycerides by 2/3rds) and that my blood pressure would drop from 130/90 to 110/70 on the same meds.
Over the years I changed from Atkins to the Bernstein Diet (designed for diabetics) and, altogether lost 170 pounds. I later regained some and then lost some. As long as I eat Very Low Carb, I am not hungry and I have lots of energy. And I no longer have any of the indications of Metabolic Syndrome.
My goal, as long as I have excess body fat, is to remain continuously in a ketogenic state, both for blood glucose regulation and continued weight loss. I expect that this regimen will continue to provide the benefits of reduced systemic inflammation, improved blood lipids and lower blood pressure as well.